A Chat with Ashley Rossi Of Noted. Candles (Creativity Over Coffee)

Okay, friends, grab your coffee or tea and join me for a really inspiring chat with my friend Ashley of Noted Candles! You might already be aware of Ashley’s lovely candles and beautiful showroom, but if not, I’m delighted to introduce you to her.

Creativity Over Coffee

Meet Ashley! I met Ashley last summer. She reached out with a really fun idea – An Artists in Residence program at her studio and I LOVED the idea. Ashley and I instantly hit it off and I’m enjoying teaching watercolor in her space. I think you will love Ashley, her amazing candles, and her story. This one is really, really inspiring!

A Chat with Ashley

Thank you so much for deciding to join me for coffee and chat about your creative process.  When I had just graduated from film school in London and couldn’t find work, I found inspiration through the many biographies I read from the library.  I used to go there each week and take out more.

Many people believe they are not creative.  I hear this all the time.  It is my hope with these conversations with my talented friends that I hope to inspire my readers to believe that they truly are creative. That creativity is just sitting inside of them waiting to bubble over.

Ashley, can you tell my readers more about yourself and Noted Candles?

Ashley – Hi!! I’m Ashley Rossi, I own and operate Noted Candles, aka Noted. I will spare you my life story but I am a Vermonter who also went to UVM and moved to Boston after I graduated from college a long time ago. I worked at BU in the Economics Department while I got my MA in Economics. I went on to have a successful 7 year career in business operations and go-to-market strategy at a Boston based cyber security startup. I loved that job and learned so much but I always knew that I was going to be an entrepreneur and I craved the flexibility to determine my own path. That said, I struggled to really figure out what my business would be. Now that I find myself as the owner of a candle company and gift store, which still feels weird, I LOVE it and I’m so glad I took the time to figure it all out since it is truly the hardest work I have ever done.

Noted today is really made up of three intertwined parts. The oldest is our handmade clean candle and diffuser business which has been around since 2015 and is now both a retail and wholesale line. I had just quit my corporate job and was piecing together projects consulting for makers and local retailers when I became involved with Noted Candles in 2018. The brand was really just beginning to take shape but shortly after we started working together the founder decided she was not going to this her fulltime job and told me she was planning to stop making candles. When Sarah said Noted was going away, I saw it as an interesting opportunity to operate my own small business which could inform a consulting practice that I was trying to build. We agreed on a way for the brand to stay alive and I basically took her idea and started a new business from it. Even though I was also teaching myself how to make candles, I was implementing a lot of the strategies I used in my former career and saw a ton of growth right away.  This was a huge change from where I had been and I was excited about what was possible and saw the candles as a platform for a bigger business one day.

In the fall of 2019 I launched the second part of the business with what became our very popular Candle Making Class. Even through the pandemic, demand was overwhelming and classes were always full. The business just continued to grow and was getting a lot of big opportunities. By the beginning of 2021 Noted was my (more than) full time job and I could see a future where a public brick and mortar space would be part of the story. I wanted to expand our corporate and custom gifting business and bring in more creative experiences, I just had no idea how I would make it all happen in Boston given how hard it was to find space in the city. So, I just kind of kept that on the back burner until basically all things happened all at once.

In 2023 my husband and I moved to Norwell from South Boston, renovated our dream house (still a major WIP which I also love doing), had our first child, and I opened our new HQ location for Noted! I hope that looking back this will be one of the single craziest years I ever have in my life. It was truly insane the amount of change and work but opening the Shop in Hingham is like realizing a dream that I hadn’t 100% known I had. The space is the perfect blend of workshop, classroom and retail gift store. When you walk in you will see what I mean, it is truly unique and is evolving all the time.

We still make every single one of our products by hand in the workshop which is open to our retail space. We have a dedicated Classroom where we teach Candle Making, and bring in others like you Danielle for Watercolor Painting, we have knitting, pottery painting, charcuterie styling, florals, etc. Then of course we have our large gift shop which features as much local and handmade product as possible.

I am now expecting our second baby and have fallen in love with our community here on the South Shore. I couldn’t think of a better place for the Noted story to play out and to raise my family.

Your showroom and studio are so beautiful. How long have you been in Hingham and can you describe the space?

Ashley – Thank you! We opened the doors of our Hingham Gift Shop to the public in November of 2023 but I was there quietly operating our existing candle business starting in the summer of 2023. I remember when I still worked in a corporate career I was super burned out and my former company hired an executive coach to work with me and I think the plan was to help me become “refreshed” in my role and “reinvigorated” about the company. I remember she asked me to close my eyes and think about my future self and describe where I physically saw myself. Not like, oh what do you want to accomplish in the next 10 years but like where are you? What do you see around you? What does the physical space look like? I think I sort of described our new HQ in Hingham. I saw myself in a big bright space with lots of light, white walls and fun pops of color. It was a warm and inviting atmosphere but also very open and spacious. It felt welcoming, happy and calming, creative too. That is how our current space feels to me. I don’t think that coach knew she was helping me realize that my vision was NOT a cubicle in an office for a software company, but she definitely had a huge impact on my life.

When do you feel most creative or happy?

Ashley – I am a true Cancer gal. My shell is my home and my surroundings are really important to my mental state. If my space is messy and disorganized so am I. I always feel like my best and most creative self when I am happy with the way my space looks and feels. I will clean my whole house before sitting down to work on my website or I don’t feel like I can focus. I think it’s a blessing and a curse.

Who or what inspires you?

Ashley – I struggle with this question actually. I love to learn and I find a lot of motivation in figuring things out but I can’t say with 100% certainty where my ideas come from. I love learning and I enjoy taking a theory and turning it into something real. If I distill it down, I think I get a lot of inspiration from other types of businesses and I really just love beautiful, well made things. I think “craft” is super important and I find it really amazing what humans can create. I have always been a shopper…and I think the experience is as important as the things you buy so I feel really inspired in places where the whole story just plays out very obviously.

I know it’s like asking if you have a favorite child, but do you have a favorite candle?

Ashley – I have to say I truly don’t have a single favorite. I have a favorite for each season, although Vanilla Amber is a year round fave of mine. I think it’s important to change things up to reflect where you’re at. Right now I have a Sea Salt Sage Diffuser by my kitchen sink. As we enter summer months I will switch to Garden Vine. In the fall it’s Mulled Cider all day and night. Post Thanksgiving I am rotating between Fir Tree and Winterberry. We haven’t launched a totally new scent since 2022, so I think it might be time…more to come soon. 🙂 

What’s your favorite color?

Ashley – Since black and white are not technically colors…I guess I would say green.

In September you launched the Get Creative Series, which I love being a part of. Can you share more about this idea with my readers?

Ashley – This is actually something I have wanted to do since pre-pandemic days but I was able to finally launch last fall. The Creatives in Residence Program is a partnership between Noted and other local folks doing really cool creative things. We have both business owners and artists in the Program but the key is that a component of what they do is teaching their thing in a class setting. Thus far I have found some great partners who align with Noted on both values and aesthetic and are just great people. These folks teach classes at Noted on a regular basis and if possible I also feature their products in our shop. We partner on events and generally just enjoy working together to promote each other.

The Get Creative Series is a collection of classes taught by our Creatives in Residence that are intended to be time for just being creative and having fun. As this blog shows there is so much value in using that part of your brain and most people don’t get a regular opportunity to do so. We have a great Classroom space and I love to host so this has become one of my favorite parts of Noted. There is no experience necessary for any of our classes and they are one-and-done events versus a series that requires a long-term commitment. You could come once, or you could come paint every single month and you would still have a great time. As of now we have a handful of disciplines represented and we’re working to expand on those this year to provide a really great set of experiences for our community.

What struggles have you found running your own creative businesses? What are the highlights or perks of being your own boss?

Ashley – My family is very young, I have an 18 month old and am about to have a second baby so for me right now the biggest struggle is practicing patience with the progress we’re making as a business. I try to just stay focused on small incremental steps versus doing all the things I want to do right away, which I may have been able to do before kids. In a business like this there are SO many ideas and things you could do, keeping connected to who you are and making sure all the pieces make sense is super important. In a way, for me going slow right now is a good thing and also really hard since I still want to do it all (and I’m a perfectionist). I think in general though that just speaks to how empowering it is to be your own boss. If you want to do it, do it. If you don’t want to, fine – no one can tell you otherwise.

What’s on the horizon for you and Noted?

Ashley – I’m really excited to just expand on what we have started here in Hingham. The biggest things coming for Noted is the evolution of our Creative Class Series and bringing more of our in person experience to our fans who can’t make it to the gift shop in Hingham. One of my favorite things we do are curated gift baskets and boxes, that is something I want to be able to offer online in a more robust way and will be launching that in time for the 2025 holiday season.

What advice would you give someone who wants to follow in your footsteps?

Ashley – GO SLOW. Working for yourself is often romanticised and although you may crave more creativity in your life, having a business like this is 10% made up of the fun stuff you really love and 90% other shit. Your business will constantly be on your mind and you will feel like you work 24/7. It takes a long time to see “success” and you may never feel like you are really there. People see where we are at now, especially with the new store and think this just happened, but it was 10 years in the making and a lot of grinding it out during that time. I don’t want this to sound like I’m talking anyone out of starting a business or dreaming, but it is truly so hard that I think the most important step is making sure you really want a business and not a hobby.

Growing up I was a huge follower of INSIDE THE ACTORS STUDIO.  At the end of the program, they would ask the interviewee these questions:

What is your favorite word? mama

What is your least favorite word? can’t

What turns you on creatively, spiritually or emotionally? being outside

What turns you off? monotony

What is your favorite curse word? fuck

What sound or noise do you love? waves

What sound or noise do you hate? a loud tv

What profession other than your own would you like to attempt? general contracting

What profession would you not like to do? healthcare (i can’t handle blood at all)

If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates? You did good down there.

Aw, I just had so much fun with Ashley over this chat and I really feel like she shared so much, especially if you’re wanted to start or continue with your creative business. A huge thank you to Ashley for joining me for this series! Be sure to follow along with her:

Photos courtesy of Ashley Rossi

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